Dr. Nassau Distinctly Says That The Bantu Region Leopard Society Is
Identical With The Ukuku, And He Says That Although The Leopards Are
Not Very Numerous Here They Are Very Daring, Made So By Immunity
From Punishment By Man.
"The superstition is that on any man who
kills a leopard will fall a curse or evil disease, curable only by
ruinously expensive process of three weeks' duration under the
direction of Ukuku.
So the natives allow the greatest depredations
and ravages until their sheep, goats, and dogs are swept away, and
are roused to self-defence only when a human being becomes the
victim of the daring beast. With this superstition is united
another similar to the werewolf of Germany, viz., a belief in the
power of human metamorphosis into a leopard. A person so
metamorphosed is called 'Uvengwa.' At one time in Benito an intense
excitement prevailed in the community. Doors and shutters were
rattled at the dead of night, marks of leopard claws were scratched
on door-posts. Then tracks lay on every path. Women and children
in lonely places saw their flitting forms, or in the dusk were
knocked down by their spring, or heard their growl in the thickets.
It is difficult to decide in many of these reports whether it is a
real leopard or only an Uvengwa - to native fears they are
practically the same, - we were certain this time the Uvengwa was the
thief disguised in leopard's skin, as theft is always heard of about
such times."
When I was in Gaboon in September, 1895, there was great Uvengwa
excitement in a district just across the other side of the estuary,
mainly at a village that enjoyed the spacious and resounding name of
Rumpochembo, from a celebrated chief, and all these phenomena were
rife there.
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